"Miss goes missing on French official forms" - let's do the same here!

[Alittlefeminist]

Hurray for French feminists who have pushed through a revision of women's titles: www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/feb/22/mademoiselle-removed-from-french-official-forms :)

Let's do the same!

maryz you are probably right! Whereas I had the killer combination of free morning + annoying meeting + home and in need of wine....

I need to hope there's some good TV on tonight so I leave MN alone, probably!

Apologies if someone's already said something similar as I haven't read the whole thread, but on the Ms question - the way I see it, it's my only available title (which I'm perfectly happy with, btw). I'm married but have kept my surname, therefore I can't be Mrs [my surname] as I'm not married to someone with my surname. And I can't be Miss anything, because I'm married. Ergo...

Am divorced but now living with partner .... so I guess I could really be a Mrs, Ms or Miss. I choose to be a Ms but hate saying it and hate to be asked because generally why should it matter?

Interesting thread, admittedly I've only skim read a lot of it but here's my 2 pence.

I totally agree there should be just one title for women just as there is for men, be that Ms or whatever. Although tbh it's not the title on a form etc that grates with me, it's when someone addresses me as 'miss'. It sounds like something you would say to a vaguely naughty child, just one step away from 'young lady'. I know most of the time this is not the intention but I find it particularly irritating if it is in a situation that involves exchange of money for example, such as in a taxi or hotel. There is the French 'mademoiselle' that I also dislike. I think as a woman in my mid-twenties I'm allowed to graduate to madame, so to speak. I guess that's the title the French woman is referring to?

Having said that, I don't think 'miss' is on the same level of condescension as the 'Hi girl' I used to hear when I lived in Amsterdam! (this was only a year ago and I do not look THAT young, although admittedly probably the same height as the average Dutch ten-year-old...)

I have discussed this with friends before and a lot have said they prefer Miss as it sounds younger and keeps their marital status a mystery, so I guess it's all horses for courses.

In my culture, though, getting older equals increasing levels of respect and so is considered a positive thing iyswim. So perhaps I'm seeing it through a different lens?

I vote Ms, anyway. Then it's up to the woman to disclose whether she's married or not, in the same way as it currently is for a man.

Bean, there are no laws about titles. Yes you can be Miss when married and Mrs even if you did not change your name or Ms in either case.

Ms works well in the US though, I have never been asked the Miss/Mrs question there, but am just addressed as Ms. But as I said earlier, I would not mind if all women were Mrs either, it's just the constant declaration of your marital status (or declaration that no, I won't tell you) that I don't like.

Mrs is much less telling nowadays anyway, how many single, unmarried women are Mrs because they never bothered to revert to Miss when they divorced - I suspect it's quite a lot.

Yep, sure, I know there aren't any laws, I just meant it from a purely logical point of view. I was always Ms before getting married, in any case, so no change there.

Another vote for Ms here. I do not like the sound of it, but "Mrs" annoys me intensely, as does the assumption by nurseries/schools etc that I am Mrs DH'ssurname. Particularly annoying given I always fill in the forms with my real name. And, what if they tried to reach me and asked for that name? Nobody would know who it is...

I get even more annoyed when DH's family send me cards addressed to Mrs DH's surname, which they know perfectly well is not my name. They are nice people but do not seem to understand the point at all and either think they are teasing or that it is mildly funny. I fume every time I see a letter addressed like that and have been tempted to return it with "not known at this address". Which of course I do not do, because it would be rude, but why do people not realise that is it equally rude to address someone with a name and title they have expressly said is not theirs?

Why should I be happy to disappear in DH's shadow and become Mrs DH's surname when neither his title nor his name have changed and nobody ever dreams of addressing him as MrSuiGeneris??

Oddly I do not mind "Miss", in fact I quite like it and always am cheered by the professional women who are married and remain known as "Miss MaidenName".

To be fair, if the other titles die out, leaving only Ms, it won't bother me, because I'll be gone by then.

"Mrs is much less telling nowadays anyway, how many single, unmarried women are Mrs because they never bothered to revert to Miss when they divorced - I suspect it's quite a lot."

that's probably the way forward. enough women will subvert the rules until they become meaningless. Once 50% of all "Mrs" people aren't married and 50% of "Ms" and "Ms" people are married the significance will start to fade. What would be really cool would be for unmarried women to use "Mrs" just because they like the sound of it, just for fun, without signifying any desire to marry.

I try to answer "yes, it's lingle" [first name]" to everyone, to gently encourage them away from use of titles. And if people get stroppy and demand to know why I didn't change my name on marriage I smile sweetly and say I'm lingle, and have no problems arising from not changing my surname.

Back in the '70s, our geography teacher took great pains to tell us that both Mrs and Miss were abbreviations of Mistress. In turn that is derived from the latin 'magister', becoming Maister, then Mister, or Maitre in french.

In Hardy's Mayor of Casterbridge, the farmers at the market are referred to as Maister (from memory).

Since I was married, I've been Mrs (Ms hadn't been invented, and like other posters I find it ugly), and now I've been Mrs longer than I was Miss.

In rural France, I'm Mme maiden name, nom d'époux married name. My gp thinks to flatter me by calling me Mlle. Which, tbh, smacks of accusing a (sadly) middle-aged woman of being an elderly virgin, generally taken to be rather insulting.

I follow the rule I learned at school of calling all women Mme, above a certain age, especially in a professional capacity. I've come across one example, a social worker in her late 20s, who rather aggressively corrected me with a forceful 'Mademoiselle'

About time. I have been calling for this for years. Do away with distinction of title over marital status. It is derogatory to wormen. Ms to me is the best option for everybody when you get to age 18 to show adult status just like Master and then Mr. When I lived in Austria I automatically became a Frau because I was over 18 on all legal documentation. Whey bother with other titles except Prof, Dr etc.

My mother used to return any letter that was addressed to Mrs P (her husband's first name) Surname. She thought it was derogatory and should not be used. She was very upset when I changed my name on marriage due to years of fighting for equality. Now I am changing my name back so should never have bothered in the first place.

Oh yeh, I hate that too, losingtrust - where the woman loses her first name too in favour of her husband's - like Princess Michael of Kent for example (although perhaps being a Princess might make up for it )

Fortunately no-one's ever used it with me, even when I've been alongside those that have used this form. I assume it's because I've never titled myself in that manner (Heaven forbid !)

Not sure I'd quite go to the lengths of sending back the letter - but good for her !

Tb, Ms was first mooted back in the early 1900s and has been gathering steam ever since. It really took off in the very early 70s, in the US. 'Ms.' magazine has been published since 1972 and it had a few incarnations prior to that, as parts of other publications. As I mentioned, most of my teachers in the 70s and 80s in Ireland used Ms. I don't know how the UK remained in the Mrs/Miss time warp.

I haven't read the whole thread, but I use Mrs Maidenname, as I didn't take DH's surname. Is that unusual?

For me, Mrs has more dignity than Miss. Why do we need Miss? Couldn't adult women be referred to as Mrs, as a sign of respect, not just a sign that they are married? We change the meaning and connotations of words all the time. Gay people appropriated the word "gay". Can't all adult women just appropriate Mrs"?

How does Mrs have more dignity than Miss?

What do you mean by 'sign of respect'?

Mrs Maidenname is actually more of a name for your mother than you, as things stand. The title Mrs still means 'wife of'.

The French may have changed their official forms (or be going to once existing stocks have run out), but they won't necessarily change their cultural habits as a result.

I guess the problem, HandMadeTail, is that "Mrs" comes with a lot of baggage of societal expectations. Which are (clearly, from this thread) quite varied in scope, but are there nonetheless.

I use Ms increasingly these days. DH doesn't like it and thinks it's a rejection. He's probably one of those in the "if we had a title like that, I'd use it" camp.

I don't really buy the choice argument ("it's my right to choose my title"). I'd really like to be called Queen Lost, and my right to choose is denied me all the time.

'The title "Mrs" still means "wife of"'

Do you feel it does mathanxiety ?

To me it makes me think more of a mature woman - like most of the teachers and teaching assistants at my child's school - I don't think immediately or strongly about them being married women, although I'd concede that that meaning is somewhere in the mix too

I think if we were to go French (or German) and call all adult women 'Mrs' then it wouldn't have those connotations of marriage any more.

I kept my own name so am definitely a Ms - Mrs is my Gran (my parents divorced so my Mother doesn't use Mrs either and eventually went back to her own name). BUT if there was a general consensus that Mrs = adult, just as Mr = adult, I'd go with it.

'1. Used as a courtesy title for a married or widowed woman before the surname or full name of her husband: Mrs. Doe; Mrs. John Doe.

1. Used as a courtesy title for a married, widowed, or divorced woman before her own surname or full name: Mrs. Doe; Mrs. Jane Doe. See Usage Note at Ms.
2. Used in informal titles for a married woman to indicate the epitomizing of an attribute or activity: Mrs. Wonderful; Mrs. Organization.'

FreeDictionary.com

'1. a title of respect prefixed to the name of a married woman: Mrs. Jones.

1. a title prefixed to a mock surname that is used to represent possession of a particular attribute, identity, etc., especially in an idealized or excessive way: Mrs. Punctuality.'

Dictionary.Reference.com

Whether someone feels a word means something else makes no difference to the meaning of the word. The teachers I had back in the 70s and 80s were mostly Ms. If they didn't want to share information about themselves besides their occupation and their surnames, and occasionally their first names, we would not have known anything else about them. We didn't even know that much about the nuns, who had the title Sister, sometimes their own first name but sometimes the name of a saint assigned to them or chosen when they took the veil.

The problem I have with the idea that Mrs = adult just as Mr = adult is that it means married woman and would still bear that connotation. Ms otoh proclaims that a woman's marital status is her own business so it is more of an equivalent to Mr, which proclaims that a man's marital status is his own business.

"Whether someone else feels that a word means something else makes no difference to the meaning of the word"

Actually the meaning of words is dependent on their usage and can and does change over time. For example in our lifetime the word "gay" now has a different meaning to the one our grandparents would have understood, and in our chiildren's generation we can see them changing the meaning of words like "wicked" and even "bad". Seems these days it's so bad it's good

I can imagine "Mrs" if more universally accepted by all women could quite easily move to meaning the same for a woman as "Mr" means for a man. That is, basically an honorific denoting adult status. I just don't see it happening with "Ms" and therefore personally feel it might be worth trying to make progress with "Mrs" taking the lead from this French development.

Ms is much more popular even in Ireland, and all over the place in the US and the rest of the English speaking world, especially n professional circles. Why go to the bother of trying to change the long established meaning of the word Mrs when there is already a thriving alternative?

Would all lesbians be happy using a term that indicated they might be straight? The subtext of 'wife of' is after all 'involved in a sexual relationship with' and perhaps 'straight'. Obviously some women married to each other have chosen to be known as Mrs and Mrs (a way to take a poke at the traditional assumption of what Mrs means and at the same time establish the 'respectability' of their relationship by using terms associated with the traditional model of marriage) but would this be true for all lesbians, even those not involved in marriage or any other monogamous relationship? I think 'Mrs' is a bit on the heteronormative side.

Interesting survey approaching the subject from the other angle - what do people tend to call women and how do they decide to assign the title Miss, Mrs or Ms to any given woman. My theory about the finding that young female undergraduates in this study tend to use Miss more is because they see themselves as junior women hoping to graduate to the status of senior women by means of a relationship with a man. They are involved in the meat market.